Orderoftheflame

The Lost and Damned is the first of the Xbox 360 exclusive expansions for GTA IV. This time round we take the role of Johnny Klebitz, a member of “The Lost”; a motorcycle gang in Liberty City.

The Lost and Damned occurs in parallel to the main GTA IV story, and Niko and Johnny’s paths often cross in both stories (Johnny and his gang have appeared many times in Niko’s story, but I only noticed how much after I played TLAD).

The gameplay does see some significant updates, whilst retaining the very standard GTA IV layout. Upon starting the game, it’s extremely clear that the bike physics have been tweaked considerably.
Whilst being far less realistic than before, the game is far more forgiving to bike riders. With simple mistakes that would have had the player flying hundreds of metres through the air being reduced to spins or slight bounces. For me, this was a welcome change. I used to use any excuse to get on a bike in Vice City or San Andreas, however during my first experience through Liberty City I found my use of bikes extremely limited.

Another big change to the gameplay is the introduction to teamwork elements. You can call for backup from other members of The Lost, and have them ride alongside you on the road, this allows for new dialogue options to be opened up, and at parts of the game you can receive a health bonus for riding in a formation. Every fight or mission you participate in with another member of the lost grants them experience, allowing them to increase statistics such as their maximum health or accuracy.

The content provides several new items to spice things up a bit. There’s several new weapons to enjoy, including a double barrelled shotgun and pipe bombs, both of which can be used from vehicles.
Although Liberty City itself has changed very little in the expansion, there are some new buildings that have had their doors unlocked, including The Losts clubhouse, which in turn includes some new minigames for the player including arm wrestling and cards.
There are a few new cars included, but as you would expect the new mode’s of transport are mainly bikes of which there must be close to a dozen of including all the variations of choppers and super bikes.

To prevent reusing common content that players may have seen or heard before, TLAD provides new radio and television content.
Whilst I’ve only listened heavily to one of the radio stations (LRR obviously!), there’s plenty of new chat, and some superb new licensed tracks to listen too.

Graphically, there’s no huge improvement over GTA IV as you’d expect, however. It does seem that a lot of effort has gone into the new character textures and models, although I haven’t directly compared them, and the quality of the voice and motion capture acting is superb.

I really enjoyed The Lost and Damned, and would recommend it to anyone that enjoyed GTA IV. For me it was an extremely good addition to the story with many enjoyable new characters and missions. However, if you didn’t enjoy GTA IV, The Lost and Damned is unlikely to change you’re views of the game.

While it may seem an expensive piece of content at 1600MS points, I do feel that it is well worth it. There is enough material to keep you happy for many hours, and as you’d expect it’s been produced to the usual high standard that Rockstar provide.